CLICK HERE if you are having a problem viewing the photos on a mobile device
STANFORD — After winning her first race at the Phillips 66 U.S. championships, Regan Smith slipped into pink Crocs, looking like almost every other swimmer competing in the meet at Stanford University this week.
But Smith is no ordinary swimmer.
She is the latest sensation in U.S. swimming, America’s queen of the backstroke, and she also is the personification of a growing dilemma facing teenage superstar swimmers. Smith is 17, a soon-to-be high school senior in Minneapolis. Does she turn down the offers to turn pro, with all the riches that entails, in exchange for a college scholarship? It’s one or the other. She can’t have both.
At the recently completed World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, Smith won two gold medals and set three world records — and was forced to turn down the bonus money for the records. To do otherwise would be to sacrifice her amateur status and her option to attend college on a scholarship.
“It’s frustrating to her,” said her father, Paul Smith. “She said, ‘Why can’t I put it in a trust fund to buy furniture when I’m 22? I earned it.’ ”
For now, Smith plans to attend Stanford in 2020. First, though, she hopes to represent the United State in Olympics in Tokyo next summer. And therein lies the root of the issue.
A year before the Olympics is when sponsors come calling. With swimming having become one of the premier Olympic sports in America, promising athletes such as Smith face increasing pressure to choose a big paycheck over an education.
“She is under all kinds of pressure to go pro with the Olympics coming up — that’s a lot of money,” Paul Smith said, adding he is almost certain Smith will attend Stanford.
Smith said she had wanted to attend Stanford since she was 10 years old. She was born in the Bay Area, where Paul Smith worked for Hewlett-Packard. His wife Kristi Smith was a financial officer for a San Francisco firm.
Paul Smith recalled telling Regan that she had to decide how important it was to get accepted at Stanford, one of the country’s top academic schools.
“If this means the world to you, some sacrifices have to be made,” he told her.
Katie Ledecky, the biggest name in women’s swimming, made the sacrifice in 2016. She accepted a scholarship to Stanford, led the Cardinal to NCAA championships in her freshman and sophomore years, and then turned pro in 2018. She has continued her education, taking classes at Stanford and training with the college team in a system permitted by NCAA officials.
Ledecky followed the road paved by Missy Franklin, who competed at Cal for two seasons before turning pro to cash in on sponsorships ahead of the 2016 Summer Olympics.
“You’re weighing your long-term financial security verses your long-term personal enrichment,” said Arizona State’s Bob Bowman, who dealt with the question as Michael Phelps’ coach. “You hate to have to give either one of them up. Maybe the model has changed instead of all-or-nothing, some.”
Three-time Olympian Elizabeth Beisel has no regrets about competing all four years at the University of Florida although she could have used the prize money she had to reject.
“As sad as I was to miss out on that money, especially in the London Games when I won my two medals, I knew the education and degree I was getting at Florida was far more important,” said Beisel, who is doing promotional work at the U.S. championships at Stanford.
Amateurism rules have become controversial in recent years because athletes say the NCAA makes billions of dollars off of their performances, particularly in the sports of basketball and football.
Some critics say it is not fair that a music student can get paid to perform outside of school while athletes are held to a different standard. To address such concerns, NCAA officials have made allowances for Olympians. According to the NCAA website, college athletes now can accept prize money for medals from their country’s Olympics governing body without any limit.
For example, Ledecky was able to keep the $355,000 in medal awards she won at the Rio Games while remaining eligible to compete for Stanford, according to USA Today. The five-time gold medal winner turned pro last year to take advantage of lucrative endorsement deals before the Tokyo Games.
Other Bay Area collegians also kept their earnings for winning gold medals in Rio, according to USA Today: Cal’s Ryan Murphy came away with $234,375; Stanford’s Simone Manuel almost $200,000. Overall, 17 American collegiate swimmers were allowed to keep about $1.5 million in prize money, the paper reported.
NCAA president Mark Emmert sounded an alarm in 2016 after it was reported that a University of Texas swimmer was given $740,000 from Singapore for winning a gold medal in the 100-meter butterfly.
“To be perfectly honest, it’s caused everybody to say, ‘Oh, well that’s not really what we were thinking about,'” Emmert said during a discussion about college sports at The Aspen Institute. “So I don’t know where the members will go on that. That’s a little different than 15 grand for the silver medal for swimming for the US of A.”
The U.S. Olympic Committee’s Operation Gold rewards medalists with $25,000 for a gold, $15,000 for a silver and $10,000 for a bronze medal.
Smith would keep any prize money for medals won at the Tokyo Games. But she cannot accept the money she earned by setting world records in South Korea last month, more than a year before she would be a college student. It is an example of how complicated the rules are.
“The NCAA is not logical or consistent in its application of amateurism rules,” said Roger Pielke, director of Center for Sports Governance at the University of Colorado. “At some point, the way these things look to the general public and policymakers are going to lead to pretty blunt reactions.”
Smith became the swimmer of the moment last month after smashing Franklin’s seven-year-old world record in the 200 backstroke with a time of 2 minutes 3.35 seconds. She also shattered the 100 backstroke world record LAST Sunday with a time of 57.57 seconds in the leadoff leg of the women’s 400 medley relay to help the Americans win the race and set a relay world record.
“The results could be surprising but not totally surprising,” said her coach Mike Parratto, known for developing former Stanford star Jenny Thompson, who won 12 Olympic medals.
Two years ago, Smith finished eighth in the 200 backstroke at the 2017 World Championships in Budapest. She arrived in South Korea hoping to do better.
“I just remember thinking if I can place higher and maybe squeeze in there for a medal for USA, that would be incredible,” Smith said this week after winning the 200 butterfly, her first senior national title. “It still doesn’t feel like I’m at the level where I’m at, which is really crazy. But also, I really like where I’m at and I don’t want to lose the mentality … because I just feel like things could maybe go downhill if I lose that strong head on my shoulders.”
